Jesus! Week 8: Resurrection (Pam Larson with Julia Dembeck)

Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and because of his love, he worked a plan that was very different from theirs. He showed them His glory and His power. He revealed to them who He is:

Jesus said: “I AM the resurrection and the life”

He didn’t say, “I can resurrect people” and “I can give life” (although awesomely true!) John’s emphasis here is not on what Jesus does (or does not do), but on who Jesus is—the Resurrection and the Life! Perhaps the most loving thing God can do for us is to show us more of Himself in the hard times, to show us the preciousness of Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life!

Here’s John Piper’s definition of love based on John 11: “Love is doing whatever you have to do — or whatever God has to do — at whatever cost, in order for the glory of God to be shown.”

In what other ways did we see the preciousness of Jesus in this lesson? Here are just a few:

• He weeps with us.
  • *Jesus wept. John 11:35.
  • *he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows… (Isaiah 53)
• He raises us from death, spiritually and eternally.
  • *“Lazarus, come out.” John 11:43
  • *And you were dead in the trespasses … But God, … made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2:1–8
  • *So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 1 Corinthians 15:42
• He calls us by name.
  • *Jesus said to her, “Mary.” John 20:16
  • *The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. John 10:3
  • *Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. Isaiah 43:1
• He gives us eyes to see him.
  • *she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. → “I have seen the Lord” John 20:14; 18
  • *For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6